"Can I switch?"

This morning was a really special morning with my kids. The conversation was real and the kids were really responsive this morning. Instead of the glazed over, tired, morning looks that the kids usually have, they were energetic. They were talking and discussion was happening. I wanted to learn more about what Buddhism was to them, so I asked them to tell me who Buddha was in their lives. After some interesting answers and a lot of confusion, I asked them to write for me. I have said this before, but something about writing makes them produce honest answers. I asked them to write about how life would be different if Buddha did not exist. They needed to tell me how the past, present, and future would be different. 

Some of the students got writing, and others got frustrated. They couldn't complete the assignment because they said that nothing would be different. I told them to tell me why they are Buddhist and what affect it has on their lives, and then think about how that would change if Buddhism did not exist. I told them that my life would be drastically different if God did not exist and I want to know how their life would be different without Buddhism. Some of my smartest students were stumped. They sat there and adamantly told me that they couldn't complete the writing assignment because nothing would be different if Buddhism did not exist. All of the sudden one of my boys, who was getting really irritated that he couldn't write anything, told me that he wanted to switch. Switch what? "I want to switch religions. I want to be a Christian, but I don't know how"!!! This is a student who has been struggling with things all year long. He reads the bible every chance he gets in class and will come up to me with stories and ask questions. He has a desire to know God, and I have seen this all along, but he also comes from a Buddhist home and struggles with wanting to believe in both things. He said that he prays to Buddha so he can talk to God. A moment before that he told me that Buddha was not God. So then I asked him what God he was talking to through Buddha, and he said "your God". 

He prays to Buddha to talk to God. That is a great picture to me of the tension that a lot of kids face here. Their families are Buddhist and they don't know how to access God without masking it or getting in trouble. They have this tension to still follow the Buddhist traditions, but they sense and feel the realness of God. 

The conversation in the classroom got so real and I got to share with my kids about how I grew up in a Christian home and did not have to make my faith my own until I went to University. A lot of them talked about how they only do these things because of their parents. I told them that they would one day have to choose and religion is not inherited. We got to talk about how they can become Christians if they choose and what that means. I left class this morning feeling almost numb because of the awesome things God did in that classroom this morning. This afternoon I red through all of their responses and found that one other student, who was previously not a Christian, wrote in his journal that he is a Christian and God makes a lot more sense to him than Buddha. He wants to be a Christian and follow God because he "can feel God"!!!

I am so excited to see my kids experiencing God on their own and sensing God's presence in their lives. I would love if you could be praying with me for my students. I know that the enemy will be after them now that they have proclaimed that they want to be Christians, and I believe in the power of prayer to help protect them from that. I also know that by sharing this I likely will be attacked in some form, because this place seems to be the stomping ground of the enemy (because God is moving here). So please, be encouraged by this, but also keep this school and class in your prayers.